Thursday, March 07, 2013

Believe me, I hate to love Spotify, but I give up, because I do love it. Don't get me wrong, I still hate it too. I can't stand about 52 or so really minor things about their interface, and I'm sure you've heard that they pay their artists .00966947678815 cents per play, which is pretty disheartening. I guess I should just pay for Premium, in hopes that some day more money will trickle back to the artists. It would also be very nice to not have to listen to any of those horrible ads again, like the one where some cheery young Pitchfork Fest type says "If you have Spotify, you'll never have to buy music ever again." (Emphasis mine.) Wow. Of course we know that physical media is dying, but that really crystallizes it: music lives on, but people buying records has been replaced by people buying computer devices (which they'll use to play records for free).

So that's a bummer, but I can't deny that I like listening to music on computer devices almost as much as I like listening to records on my stereo, and here in head-in-the-sand internet la-la land, one thing I'm really enjoying about Spotify is making playlists to go with the music books I'm reading. Here's three of 'em that I think are pretty good, whether you're reading the book or not, though I highly recommend all of these books as well.

This first playlist goes with Electric Eden (Faber & Faber, 2011), Rob Young's expansive history of British folk music, that goes back to early 20th Century Classical, and continues all the way up through stuff like Talk Talk and The Orb, turning me on to several excellent groups I wasn't really aware of before, such as Mr. Fox, the Albion Family Band, Dr. Strangely Strange, and Spirogyra... this could also use some tweaking, and I'm not sure if The Orb really fits on there, but lots of great stuff:

I think this next one turned out great, though it might also undergo a few more changes and additions. It's inspired by Chapter 6 of the rather overwhelming new book Psychedelia: An Ancient Culture, A Modern Way Of Life (Lysergia, 2012), by the author of the great Acid Archives record guide, Patrick Lundborg. In Psychedelia, Lundborg lays out the entire history of humans using psychedelic drugs, from prehistoric times to the present day, introducing several challenging perspectives in the process. One of them is that 1950s Electronic Music and Exotica were the first (and truest??) psychedelic music. After making this playlist from a bunch of his examples, I feel like I could almost agree with him:

And finally, if I still threw rock'n'roll parties where everybody got wasted and hung out, I would put on this next playlist and boom, I'd be done DJing. It's an audio version of Nick Kent's "Soundtrack to the Seventies," an addendum to his memoir Apathy For The Devil (Da Capo, 2010), a real page-turner of a rock book that I think I got through in about 3 hours. Not a whole lot of obscuro choices here, but this is a fine staple diet. Your local corporate classic rock station could easily be this good.... or would corporate financial power be steadily fragmented and decentralized by the subtly progressive and mind-expanding sounds on offer here? A topic for discussion at said rock'n'roll party, though I do wish this playlist didn't have like 5 David Bowie songs, or even 1 by Jackson Browne and/or Elvis Costello. As for Blue Valentine by Tom Waits, it was on Kent's list but I simply couldn't bear to include a song from it. I took the liberty of replacing it with "Space Is Deep" by Hawkwind, who surprisingly weren't on Kent's list.

Monday, March 04, 2013

Time for a quick report on some imminent action from the Alan Bishop/Sun City Girls/Abduction Records camp... let's start with the brand new stuff, a Cairo-based band called The Invisible Hands that is releasing a self-titled full-length album on March 19th. Alan writes and sings the songs, plays bass, guitar, piano, and more, and is joined by some very accomplished musicians from the "popular Egyptian group" Eskenderella. An advance track from this album premiered on Pitchfork recently, and I caught some chatter about how surprisingly orchestral-poppy the song was. Well, it's not too surprising, as he's been going that direction for a few years now, and to me The Invisible Hands album sounds like a logical continuation of what started with his 2005 Alvarius B album Blood Operatives of the Barium Sunset (dark underworld songwriting given clean and ambitious studio treatments), up through the more recent Sun City Girls album Funeral Mariachi (even cleaner, even more orchestral, even more obsessed with vintage Italian film soundtracks, Brian Wilson, etc). Big Al just continues to get more and more assured at blending these ingredients, and there's some really brilliant stuff on this record -- fascinating lyrics ("Bad Blood" is a particular standout), great hooks, beautiful blends of keyboards and strings, a few ripping oud cameos by Sam Shalabi -- and I think more will continue to be revealed. Sure, it's the most accessible, slick, and radio-friendly he's ever sounded, but so what? Don't you like music? Also of note: there's going to be Arabic language version of this CD, only available to purchase in the Middle East, with both versions to be available for digital download and as a limited edition double LP "in the very near future."

Abduction is also going to release another CD on March 19th, this one featuring some classic old stuff by the Sun City Girls, more specifically Eye Mohini: Sun City Girls Singles Vol. 3. The two previous singles comps were superb, but this one collects the entirety of the monumental Borungku Si Derita double-7" EP and the nearly-as-great Eye Mohini 7". I think I once called the former "my favorite Sun City Girls album" -- it has definitive versions of two classic Sir Richard Bishop raveups (the Egyptian surf pounder "Abydos" and the joyful hopped-up-on-goofballs trad-jazz number "Rose Room"), the lovely and mysterious "Carousel Tapsel," a sweetly ratty down-home guitar-guitar-drums trio version of "Esoterica of Abyssynia," the fearsome dirge "Smile," and I'm not even mentioning a couple more great tracks. From the latter, "Eye Mohini" is one of their most heartfelt vocal ballads, "Kal el lazi kad ham" one of their most regal instrumentals, and "Lemur's Urine" features Eddy Detroit on bongos and is called "Lemur's Urine." All this and much more, including a very heavy album-closing 10-minute live version of Torch of the Mystics classic "The Flower" from 1992. RIP Sun City Girls, nice to have you back.

Keep your eyes on Forced Exposure for official announcements these next couple weeks.

Sunday, March 03, 2013

INTRO: Last time I went out to a show I was standing around talking about music in between bands and blithely announced that Bull of the Woods was my 2nd favorite 13th Floor Elevators album (Easter Everywhere being the fairly undisputed #1 choice). I got some push-back, but stuck to my guns. Now, away from the front lines, I'll admit it's not even true -- can't deny the greatness of Psychedelic Sounds Of..., for historical reasons alone -- but even if Bull is the 3rd best Elevators album, there is no doubt that it's the Elevators album I'm most obsessed with, and it's probably the one I've actually listened to the most. It's an album that feels like it's slipping away from me even as I listen to it, which is partly what keeps me coming back. It also reveals new depths every time. I just listened to it an hour ago and I'll be damned if the rhythm section on "Scarlet and Gold" didn't sound heavier and dubbier than ever, and how about the crashing and echoing waves of Stacey Sutherland's guitars on "Street Song" as he coolly drawls "I saw some windowpane"? (And by the way, the Decal CD from 1991 sounds 100 times heavier than this thing does on Spotify, just sayin'.) So, when I finally got around to reading Eye Mind, Paul Drummond's exhaustive history of the Elevators, I decided to use it to write up a little outline of the making of Bull of the Woods... anything to try to understand this album a little better. I post it here for the hell of it... maybe some fellow obsessives will appreciate it..... (all quoted material besides song titles is directly Drummond's book)...

AFTER the monumental Easter Everywhere is released in October 1967, the physically and psychically fractured band disengages from the intensity of the last two years. Members become scattered around Houston. Roky is not doing well, living a nomadic existence around the city, suffering from performance anxiety and increasingly showing signs of a serious personality disorder. Tommy Hall relinquishes "his totalitarian hold" over the band and tries to build a new non-musical acid community around workshop meetings at his apartment, which effectively promotes guitarist/songwriter Stacey Sutherland to being the band leader. Bassist Danny Galindo leavesthe band, and is replaced in January 1968 by Duke Davis. Where Roky and Tommy took the lead in creating Easter Everywhere, it is understood that Sutherland will take the lead in the creation of their next album. Although the band is not necessarily in a good creative space, their label International Artists is pushing them hard for product, especially since they are unable to leave the state of Texas due to various probations, and cannot generate income from touring.

1968

February 7th: The trio of Stacey Sutherland on guitar, Duke Davis on bass, and Danny Thomas on drums start doing sessions for the third 13th Floor Elevators album at Gold Star Studios in Houston. Sutherland is the band leader, creative director, songwriter, guide vocalist, lead vocalist. The song "Wait For My Love" is the first to emerge.

February 21st: The trio has developed enough material to bring Roky and Tommy in. Tommy is developing his concept for the album, dealing with the Electra complex of his then-current relationship with Gay Jones. The working title is Beauty and the Beast. Nothing they work on this day ends up being released.February 22nd: The previous night's fruitless session ends at 8:30 AM. Roky returns sometime in the early afternoon to find none of the band there. He is convinced to do some solo recording, and lays down a few electric guitar-and-voice takes of his song "May the Circle Remain Unbroken," adding his own Vox organ overdubs. By evening, Roky is joined by Tommy, Stacey and the Duke Davis/Danny Thomas rhythm section. They very quickly lay down "Livin' On," lyrics by Tommy, music by Stacey. Then, they start overdubbing on "May the Circle Remain Unbroken" to frankly legendary effect. This was the only album session for which the entire band was present.

February 29th: Working without Tommy and Roky, the band lays down the music for "Never Another."

March 2nd: Tommy lays down his jug parts.

March 3rd: Roky lays down vocals for "Never Another" and "Livin' On."

March 12th: Stacey and the rhythm section work on the music for "Dr. Doom," lyrics by Tommy.

March 13th: Roky lays down lead vocal and rhythm guitar on "Dr. Doom."

March 20th and 23rd: After these two more sessions, ten tracks are in the can, although six of them don't have finished vocals. "Never Another," "Livin' On," "Dr. Doom," and "May the Circle Remain Unbroken" all do. The band breaks from recording, intending to spend all of April playing shows, doing a club stand in Houston. However, Roky refuses to go onstage, or doesn't show up at all. Not one full show is achieved.

Early April: Impatient for progress, International Artists decides to release a single of "May the Circle Remain Unbroken" b/w Stacey's song "Wait For My Love." This sends Stacey to the studio alone, trying to improve the song with "endless" overdubs. It undergoes a name change to "Someday My Love."

April 20th: In bed trying to sleep, Evelyn Erickson hears her son Roky "screaming" and "talking gibberish" outside. This is considered the first real psychotic episode for Roky. Early in the morning, he is taken to an emergency psychiatrist, the beginning of Roky's fateful involvement with the Texas psychiatric police state. Tommy is still trying to settle on a concept for the album. He begins exploring Gnostic Christianity and writes a mysterious chant called "Jerusalem (Supersonic Highway)" which is performed a few times in a rather desultory fashion.

May & June: As spring passes into summer, International Artists rejects Stacey's "Someday My Love" as the B-side and decides to replace it with a Buddy Holly cover outtake from 1966. Stacey does more work in the studio in May and June, though it is not certain what is produced here except the controversial horn overdubs on "Never Another," "Livin' On," and "Dr. Doom." These were laid down by two trombonists and one trumpeter from the Houston Symphony Orchestra, on Danny Thomas's invitation.

July: Still impatient with the way the third album is developing, International Artists begins production on the fake Live album. Duke Davis drifts out of the band and is replaced by the returning Ronnie Leatherman. The band fragments further when, behind Stacey's back, Tommy and Roky attempt to relocate the band to San Francisco with a new rhythm section.

August: In a final run at the 3rd album by the Sutherland/Leatherman/Thomas trio, 7 new songs are recorded. "Down by the River," "Scarlet and the Gold," and "With You" are keepers. "Someday My Love" uses a new set of lyrics by Tommy Hall and becomes "Til Then." Ensemble vocals by all three members are laid down. In the meantime, the fake live album is released.

September 26th: The third album is declared finished and in the can. Stacey gives it the title Bull of the Woods, reflecting the resiliency and determination it took for him to get the project done.

1969

February: "Livin' On" b/w "Scarlet and the Gold" is released as an advance single.

March:Bull of the Woods is released. "[Stacey's cover concept] was to portray the band's Texas heritage by using the silhouette of a longhorn bull to similar effect as the familiar representation of the proud Spanish bull. [Rather clueless International Artists label head Bill] Dillard took the title literally and lifted an image of a bull's head poking through a wooden fence, from a steakhouse menu he swiped." The record barely sells at all but its deep haunting sounds are still "livin' on".....